The subject matter disclosed herein relates to an aircraft and, more particularly, to a rotary or fixed wing aircraft with a thrust vectoring tail.
A compound helicopter generally includes an airframe, a main rotor assembly, wings, a tail rotor and one or more propellers or ducted fans. The airframe has a main section, an upper section and a tail section. The main section is formed to define a cockpit that can accommodate a pilot and in some cases one or more crewmen and/or passengers. The upper section is disposed at an upper portion of the main section and the tail section is disposed to extend in the aft direction from the main section. The main rotor assembly is disposed at the upper section of the airframe and may include an upper and lower coaxial, counter-rotating rotors. The tail rotor is disposed at the tail section. The propeller or ducted fans is/are disposed at the tail section or along the side of the fuselage.
The helicopter further includes a flight control computer, an engine and a transmission. The engine is configured to generate power that can be used to drive rotations of the main rotor assembly and the propeller in order to generate lift and thrust for the helicopter. The transmission transmits the power to the main rotor assembly and the propeller. The flight control computer controls various operations of the engine and the transmission as well as the collective and cyclic operations of the main rotor assembly and the propeller(s) in accordance with pilot inputted commands and current flight conditions.
As a result of the compound helicopter including multiple propellers or ducted fans in addition to the tail rotor, the overall weight and part count of the compound helicopter can be relatively high. This can lead to performance degradation, such as reduced fuel economy to transport a given payload weight to a destination. Additionally, for the case of a coaxial compound helicopter, there are opportunities to improve the yaw control capability with respect to current coaxial pusher-prop designs.